


Integration Part IV

by flamethrower



Series: Re-Entry: Journey of the Whills [29]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, GFY, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-12
Packaged: 2018-02-17 03:37:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2295308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a fine line between educated and jaded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Integration Part IV

**Author's Note:**

> BetaBetaBeta credit: Writestufflee, Merry Amelie, Norcumi
> 
> _________________________
> 
> I just found a spot (corrected) where AO3 mashed words together upon publication. If anyone else notices any word garble, feel free to let me know.

Republic Date 5201: 4/3rd

The Cathedral, Entrios

 

Venge walked the full length of the cathedral. His left hand cupped his right elbow; his right palm was pressed against his chin. He met the wall, regarded it for a long, silent moment of absent contemplation, before turning and resuming his walk across the vast open space.

Tachi fell into step beside him on his fourth lap. “Whatcha doing, Not-Sith Skinny Butt?”

Venge looked at her from the corner of his eye without turning his head or slowing his pace. “How many descriptive terms do you plan on adding to the original set?”

“As many as I can think of,” Tachi said, grinning. “Well? And I know you’re safe to hang around right now, don’t give me that sour face. You’ve spent the last six hours shooting Force Lightning at anyone who’s been stupid enough to come near you.”

“And yet, here you are,” Venge returned, smiling.

Tachi shrugged. “I still need the practice.”

His smile grew wider. “To answer your question: I am walking.”

“Yes, I can see that.” Tachi snickered. “What else are you doing?”

“I am thinking.” They reached the opposite wall. Venge paused long enough to stare Tachi in the face. “Your mood is frighteningly upbeat. What did you break?”

“Su’um-Va.”

Not a what, but a who. “Ah.” Venge resumed walking. “And?”

“Annnd, I’m in a good mood because I’ve come this far in your training, and I’m doing well. Isn’t that a reason to be happy?” Tachi asked.

Venge’s brows drew together. “I don’t think it ever occurred to me that anyone would find joy in any part of this.”

“Well, the reason why we’re doing this is terrible, but the lessons themselves? Obi-Wan, we are doing _amazing_ things with the Force, dealing with crazy non-murderous Sith, learning to defend against things that could easily kill us…and we Shadows are all still strong and unbroken.” Tachi smiled. “If some of the others want to be grim-faced and miserable, that’s their problem, but I’m going to be happy about what we’ve accomplished.”

Venge nodded to show his understanding. Maybe when Fire was gone, he could share in her enthusiasm. They were not yet done with their time in the Cathedral, but the Shadows had adapted well, progressing by leaps and bounds beyond what he had initially expected.

“Does Master Gallia realize the strength of your connection with Su’um-Va?”

Tachi shook her head. “Not really. Given that I tend to like a lot of different people at once, I guess she just thinks he’s an extra-shiny part of the menagerie. But that’s not really it.”

They started another lap. “You love him.”

She smiled. “I do, yeah. It might even be Lifebond potential, if Su’um-Va can get through some of the baggage his previous relationships left him with. Granted, Ra’um-Ve is carrying as much of that baggage as he is. That woman is dead certain I’m going to fuck and run.”

Something like manic amusement uncurled in his chest. “You will be certain to prove her wrong.”

“That’s the plan,” Tachi agreed.

“Wait,” Venge said, when they once again met and turned away from the wall. The whole of the cathedral was spread out before them. The walls were still black-scorched, but the cleaning droids had scrubbed the durasteel floor until it was more or less mirror-smooth again.

In a complex full of individuals who had mastered—or were mastering—hiding from sight and senses, a bit of warning was called for. “If anyone else is in the room, get the fuck out. I have no idea what the result of this experiment will be.”

Gyre uncloaked, revealing himself standing about ten meters away. “Can I watch?” he asked, excited by the mention of an experiment.

Venge nodded. “From over here, please.”

Gyre jogged over, joining himself and Tachi. “What are you going to do?”

“Quiet,” Venge said in response, already concentrating on what he wished to do. Raw power was not a problem. Strength of will was a given. Anger…Venge closed his eyes and let it loose, burning rage streaming out from behind the iron shields he kept on Fire.

“Blasted hills of my homeland,” Gyre whispered in an awed voice.

Venge let the anger coalesce in the center of the room, meters above the floor. He clenched his hand into a fist, a silent snarl on his face as he twisted the Dark energy into the form he wanted it to take.

He opened his eyes, and it took a considerable amount of self-restraint not to start ripping up the floor. “Fuck. _Dammit._ ”

“Not what you were going for?” Gyre asked, tilting his head as he regarded the swirling morass of Dark energy. It was more like a violet, angry cloud, rotating within a self-contained atmosphere.   Blue sparks popped off of it at random intervals, striking the floor and leaving molten red spots behind.

Tachi was frowning. “I get it. You were trying to create a Force Storm.”

“I was,” Venge said. “That was my third attempt.” He gestured with his hand, and the cloud broke apart. “Do not go over there for a while. The area will need time to settle, and getting struck dead by electrical discharge is not ideal.”

Gyre seemed thoughtful. “What is going wrong?”

“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be a failing endeavor,” Venge retorted, and then wiped the sweat from his face with one hand. For the last ten-day he was either perspiring heavily or freezing. The two extremes were getting tiresome.

“Tell us what you think it should be doing,” Tachi said, crossing her arms. “What?” she continued, when Venge gave her a surprised look. “If you’re trying to recreate it, it’s obviously for our benefit. Nobody needs to get Storm-tossed the way you did. If Sidious can do it, we need to be able to counter it.”

Venge inclined his head, acknowledging her point. “He spoke, and wrote, about how anger and will came together to create his storms. There is fuel, desire, and rage. With three failures, I can only draw two possible conclusions.”

“Either he lied about how to do it—” Tachi began.

“Or even Sidious is unaware of what other element he is utilizing to create them,” Venge finished. He pulled a blank data chip from his belt pouch, considered the empty space where the cloud had been, and then threw the chip at it.

A bolt of blue lightning appeared from thin air, striking the chip and turning it into so much char. Tiny fragments of plastine rained down onto the floor like grains of thrown sand.

“Sidious never lies,” Venge said, feeling the old anger stir in his chest. “He doesn’t know.”

“Why not ask, er, Lady Zannah?” Gyre ventured. “Perhaps she knows?”

“No. Force Storms were not in her repertoire. Bane did not know how to create one, either.” Venge turned around and sat down cross-legged on the floor, facing the wall. “Go away. I need to think.”

“Come on, Gyre,” Tachi said, after a long moment in which neither Shadow moved to depart. “I think that’s all we’re going to get out of him this evening.”

“I just wanted to theorize about what the next required element might be,” Gyre was saying, as Tachi guided him to the central corridor. “Or is it even just one? He’s trying to build a wormhole, after all…”

The moment their voices faded, Venge leaned his forehead against the cool stone of the wall. He felt fucking awful—energy expenditures had become a double-edged sword. He had to do it, to keep the worst of Fire’s effects at bay, but he was so damned tired now. There was a dragging weight on all of his limbs that seemed ever-increasing.

He shook off the worst of the self-pity and scooted back from the wall, lest he be tempted to stay in that position for the night. If he didn’t yet have the means to create a Force Storm, then exploring the potential for wormhole travel was off the table.

 _Teleportation does not work. Wormholes are plausible._ _Perhaps there is another method of travel I am missing_ , he thought. A quick escape from Sidious would be useful during a confrontation, whether it was Venge trying to deliver the killing blow, or one of his Sith-trained Shadows.

At some point in the evening, Venge thought, _Fuck it,_ and tried the old method of moving between places again. All that did was create a terrible spike of pain in his head that marred his concentration. He glared at the wall and groused in a steady progression of artfully constructed foul language.

It devolved into Venge just staring at the wall, thinking about traveling, thinking, traveling, methods, traveling—

When the cloaked form emerged from the wall before him, Venge scooted back a full two meters before sense could override panic. He took a breath, told his pounding heart to calm down, and said, “Fire is _not_ a hallucinogen.”

“No,” the figure replied. She was female, at least according to her voice and the way her dark gray cloak draped over her torso. Form was revealed, but no details that would tell him of her species or origin. Her hood hung low over her face, so only a shadowy glimpse of chin and jaw were visible.

“Fire is a provider of heat and warmth, but I imagine you mean something quite different.”

Venge got to his feet and approached his mysterious visitor with slow, careful steps. He reached up and prodded her in the shoulder, which caused the woman to emit an amused huff of air.

She was solid form. Venge looked at the wall she’d walked through, then at her.

“Tell me how you did that. Please.”

“Your first words show no concern with my origin or identity. Interesting,” she said. “That’s the best response I’ve ever received to my shadow-walking.”

Shadow-walking. Venge knew that term. “Master Kuro,” he murmured, and dropped his head in a short, polite bow.

“No,” she corrected him. “I am the Dark Woman, young Master Kenobi.”

Venge blinked once to keep his thoughts from his eyes. He thought he remembered that story now; it seemed she was still right in the middle of that particular phase. An’ya Kuro had resumed use of her true name during the Clone Wars.

“Then that is what I will call you,” he said. “Why are you here?”

“Despite my wandering ways, I am not without my own eyes and ears in the Temple. I was curious. You are a Darkened man, but the Council still tolerates your presence, whereas my own darkness once caused them such concern.” She raised her head, so that the bottom curve of her lip was just visible, if still shaded by darkness. “No one has ever asked me how to shadow-walk except for Ki-Adi, and he never succeeded in doing so.”

“I will.”

She chuckled again, the barest stirring of breath. “I believe you. Listen, then. To phase through objects requires an intense recognition of the fact that the only barrier between my hand…” she placed her hand upon the black wall, “and this rock, is nothing more than differing molecular structure. The molecules that make up my solid form impact the molecules that create this rock, and thus passage is impossible.”

Venge’s eyes flickered from her hood to her gloved hand. “Thus it has a basis in science.”

The Dark Woman nodded. “A basis, yes, but the rest—I will confess that the remaining skills lie entirely in the metaphysical. Theoretically, the ability to alter the alignment of my molecules should cause complete destabilization of my body, yet shadow-walking has never caused this. There is also a…strange facet.”

Venge raised an eyebrow. “There is very little you could tell me that I would genuinely find to be strange.”

“Hmm. I get that impression,” she said. “If I am in a well-lit area, the limit of my phasing is quite literally the opposite side of whatever surface I walk through. If I walk through shadow? I can emerge through _any_ other shadow that is nearby. That aspect of shadow-walking, no science has ever been able to explain.”

Venge looked at the shadow she had come through. The entrance to the Cathedral was many meters to their right; behind this wall was almost a kilometer of solid rock. “You entered the shadowy side of the cliff outside, near the door, and came out here.”

He could sense that she was smiling. “Yes.”

Venge considered all that he knew about wormholes. He thought about how travel between worlds had once been as easy as slipping into the gentle, warm current of the Force, letting it take him from place to place with nothing more than a thought.

Venge took a breath and, with only one brief moment of hesitation, he walked through the wall.

He misjudged; Venge felt himself falling through the air on the other side. He landed hard on his left arm, felt the sickening snap of bone. Pain welled up, but he ignored it, rolling over so that he could get up onto his knees.

He’d managed to fall through the thrice-damned _ceiling._

“You must do a better job of visualizing where you wish to end up,” the Dark woman instructed him in a dispassionate voice. She was now several meters away, still standing in the place where he had shadow-walked.

“I gathered that,” Venge muttered. He wanted to feel elation at his success, but Fire always burnt out such things. All he could manage was a quick, bitter smile.

Venge stood up, cradling his lower arm. Both bones had broken cleanly; the area was starting to swell and turn red. He sighed in resignation at the healing he was about to have to perform.

“You do not need to injure yourself further when you are already suffering.” The Dark Woman appeared at his side without any hint that she was going to move, and her hand came down on his arm.

The healing was fast—fortunate, as Venge leapt back, wide-eyed. His breath came too fast, and he could feel panic rising up, a ready companion to anger and fear.

She hadn’t moved. “Does my touch bother you?” the Dark Woman asked in a quiet voice.

“I should fucking well hope so!” Venge shouted, appalled. He was torn between cutting her down, or fleeing the room. Perhaps both.

“I’m sorry about that.”

 _Sorry?_ “You—you are…you are _deceased,_ ” Venge stuttered, the memories of old nightmares trying to swamp him. “You are an animated dead body!”

The Dark Woman lifted her head. The gesture revealed more of the lower half of her face. Her lips were almost bloodless white, and her skin had a greyish cast that had never been associated with good health on a full-blooded human.

“I like to think of it as being mostly dead,” she said in an amused voice. “If I were truly deceased, rot would have set in by now.”

Venge’s heart was racing in his chest, keeping pace with his fury. He swallowed to ease the tightness in his throat. “If you are not…deceased…then what has happened to you?”

“I made an enemy of a Nightsister in my youth. Foolishly, I thought that my act of mercy in sparing her life would also spare me of her wrath. I believe I am experiencing her long, drawn-out revenge.”

Venge resolved to pay particular attention to his manners, if ever he found reason to return to Dathomir. “And there is…I am assuming that you have tried to undo this.”

“Oh, yes.” The Dark Woman didn’t seem concerned. “I’ll figure it out, eventually, and my presence will be far less distressing.” She paused, lips quirking in what might have been a smile. “You are thinking of piercing me with your lightsaber.”

Venge didn’t see the point in denying it. “Would it help? Would it stop this?”

“Mm. Probably not. I’ve already been shot once before. It did little.” She took a step closer. Venge clamped his jaw shut and refused to retreat.

The Dark Woman stopped when she was within touching distance of him, but she did not reach out again. “It is not me that you are terrified of, but what I represent. When did you have cause to fear the undead?”

“I—I had to walk through halls filled with the dead, all of them allies and friends. Twice I did that. I had nightmares long afterwards of returning to that place, and seeing them all rise up again—not whole, but as the years of rot had left them.” Venge shook off the memories before they could overwhelm him. “Why did you come here?”

“An answer for an answer, then.” She was studying him again, glimpsing him somehow through the thick cloth of her hood. Venge was relieved that he couldn’t see her eyes.

“I dreamed for a full ten-day that there was at last a student to whom I could pass on the gift of shadow-walking,” the Dark Woman said. Her voice turned hard. “I saw a man whose eyes and hair both blaze like fire. He drowns in Darkness, but refuses to feel its corruption. He walks the path of the Whills, but doesn’t remember where it started.”

“I am _not_ a prophecy!” Venge snarled. He was sick to death of mysterious references and vague descriptions.

“Well, I only had to mention the first part before someone was able to direct me towards you,” she said, all hint of foresight gone from her voice. “Do it again, Master Kenobi. This time, choose your emergence point carefully.”

Venge spent the rest of the Cathedral’s night cycle practicing shadow-walking under the Dark Woman’s stern, watchful gaze. The more he slipped through darkened walls, the more it felt like dancing across a doorway that he couldn’t quite see.

He mentioned the idea to the Dark Woman. “I do not recall seeing such a thing…but it has the feel of truth to it,” she said. “I wonder if you might not have discovered how to do this on your own. You would not otherwise have been staring at shadows while contemplating travel. Now, show me something more difficult. The lone tree near the landing field casts a long shadow.”

Venge eyed her in grim reminder that it was snowing and cold outside, then allowed himself to walk down through the shadow that ran along the floor. A swift impression of unceasing black flashed before his eyes before he was shocked by a gust of icy wind. He found himself kneeling next to the dead, frozen tree that marked the Cathedral’s cliff-side entrance.

“Oh, fuck this,” Venge gasped, and threw himself backwards.

He stumbled back into the cathedral, emerging from the wall where the Dark Woman had first appeared before him. It wasn’t much of a surprise to discover that she was already gone.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Su’um-Va waited until Siri had departed the medical bay, gave vent to a fierce sigh, and then rounded on his sister. “You need to stop trying to terrify my girlfriend.”

Ra’um-Ve scowled at him before turning away, ostensibly to study the neurochem bloodwork from that morning. “I don’t seem to need to work at it very hard.”

“She knows you don’t approve of her.”

“I don’t,” Ra’um-Ve agreed in a cheerful voice. “I don’t trust her motives.”

Su’um-Va reached over her shoulder and snagged the flexpad from her hands. There were some benefits to being several centimeters taller than his sister. “I feel a sudden urge to remind you that I am a big boy, and can handle my own romantic affairs.”

“I’m your elder sister, and no, you really tend to fail at handling your own romantic affairs,” Ra’um-Ve replied, rolling her eyes at the loss of the flexpad. She brought the data up on their primary display instead, shoving the image to the left with a flick of her finger. “We’ve got another minute before this evening’s bloodwork comes up.”

“You’re my elder by thirty minutes,” Su’um-Va grumbled. Even their mother used that excuse. It had worn thin long ago. “I hope the numbers are more informative than Obi-Wan. _Please_ stop terrorizing my girlfriend.”

“When she grows confident enough to stand up to me, then I will approve,” Ra’um-Ve replied in an absent-minded tone. “He didn’t look well this evening, did he?”

“He _looked_ fine.” Su’um-Va’s Healer instincts had been roused, regardless. Venge had sat in the commissary that evening, trying to mediate between two Shadows who had decided that an argument on Sith morality was called for. Su’um-Va had caught their patient pressing his fingertips to his temple—one of his tells for severe headache. It could be nothing; Fire was not kind, after all. Still, Su’um-Va worried. All of the neurochem profiles were coming back elevated, even after the neurotransmitter supplement doses had been reduced. G.A.A. was the only boost that remained unchanged; otherwise, the man’s natural G.A.A. levels plummeted.

“Don’t fret until we have reason to,” Ra’um-Ve chastised him.

“You’re fretting as much as I am.”

“True,” Ra’um-Ve admitted. “More so since we began sending updating biochem profiles to Zan Arbor, of all beings.”

“She has her uses.”

Su’um-Va merely nodded at Venge’s unexpected comment. His senses were too attuned to his patient to be caught unawares…and he didn’t think Venge had deliberately tried to startle them. Showing up out of nowhere was just something the man did.

A moment later, Su’um-Va whirled around. “What’s wrong?” he asked, aware that Ra’um-Ve had followed suit. Venge took a wavering half-step back, as if struck by Su’um-Va’s sudden intensity. He was too pale and perspiring heavily, causing long strands of his hair to be plastered to his face.

“I feel like I’ve been poisoned.”

Su’um-Va felt a deep unease at the words. With a spy lurking near the Cathedral, such a thing was not beyond the realm of possibility.   “Any other symptoms, aside from the headache earlier?”

“Heart’s racing,” Venge said, just as Ra’um-Ve swore.

“Fuck’s sake! He has been poisoned, and _we_ did it to him,” she ground out. “Look at his serotonin.”

Su’um-Va glanced up at the screen, and echoed his sister’s swearing. “Congratulations,” he told Venge, who was turning white with alarming speed. “You now know what serotonin poisoning feels like.”

Venge allowed Su’um-Va to push him towards the closest medical bed, but by the time they’d reached it, Su’um-Va was the only thing keeping Venge from meeting the floor. He lowered the bed with a thought; Venge fell onto the bed more or less in a sweaty jumble of limbs, and rolled over onto his side.

Su’um-Va raised an eyebrow. Classic pose for avoiding pulmonary aspiration. “Are you worried about vomiting?”

“No,” Venge grumbled back, in a tone that clearly conveyed _Yes._

“Not for long,” Ra’um-Ve sang out, and jabbed Venge in the thigh with a hypospray before he could react. If the numbers hadn’t confirmed it, Su’um-Va would have known from that alone that Venge was unwell.

Venge hissed out a pained curse. “Is it fixable?”

“Absolutely,” Ra’um-Ve said in reassurance, and then started counting down on her fingers from five. By the time she held up only one finger, Venge had passed out without even a hint of protest.

“How much did you give him?” Su’um-Va asked, noting down the time of incident on the flexpad.

“For anyone else, I gave him close to a lethal dose,” Ra’um-Ve said in a quiet voice. Su’um-Va looked up from the pad and met her eyes. “Fifty, Suva. Make a note, and be prepared for a six-hour monitoring shift.”

 _Fifty. By the Force,_ Su’um-Va thought, his stomach twisting at the thought. The normal dose of tarroffinial for a full grown humanoid was _ten_. “All right, but that means you’re the one that gets to comm MonMassa and tell her that we almost killed her favorite Shadow instructor.”

Ra’um-Ve sighed and sat down in a chair. “If I hadn’t just expended a significant effort at getting that arrhythmia under control, I’d make you do it.”

“The fever was much easier to adjust,” Su’um-Va said, and knelt down next to his sister, taking her hand. It sometimes infuriated him that the primary Temple would have separated them into different clans, had they been raised on Coruscant. Their close bond was one of their greatest strengths, not a weakness borne of youthful attachment. It only took a thought to open the correct paths, allowing their physical reserves to rebalance between them. When it was done, Ra’um-Ve looked far less likely to faint on her way to the comm station.

“I do not ‘faint,’” Ra’um-Ve said, sitting up straighter in her chair. “Fainting is for fancy ladies. I am a Healer, and we pass out in dark corners and hope someone notices long enough to toss a blanket over us.”

Su’um-Va went as far as the door to see his sister off. He comm’d Zarin Har and Abella, hopeful that he would not interrupt anything, and waited for the other Healers to join him. If their patient decided to have a bad reaction to anything else this evening, Su’um-Va wanted assistance nearby.

 

*          *          *          *

 

[You didn’t fucking tell us that A Drop of Fire was a reuptake inhibitor!]

Jenna looked at the message on her screen, blinking a few times. The text had appeared without warning, overlaying the chemical profile she had been studying.

Once she had deduced the nature of the unexpected accusation, Jenna found the proper program to communicate with. It would only allow her to respond to incoming signals; that was not a surprise.

[I did not know this.] Jenna tapped her finger on the edge of the datapad. Yes, now she remembered some nonsense about the Jedi Healers attempting to treat Kenobi via neurotransmitter therapy. [What neurotransmitter did it affect?]

The reply she received was far less virulent in nature. [All of them. We supplemented the primary emotive transmitters a., s., n., d., G.A.A.. G.A.A. plummets now unless boosted; all others rise. Serotonin poisoning and manic behavior.]

Jenna frowned. [Fire creates manic behavior.]

[More manic than usual. I am not above asking for suggestions at this point.]

Her response was prompt. [Full, unconscious sedation for the remainder of the 120 day period.] The longer Kenobi lived, the more time she had to find a potential inhibitor for Fire.

With the next texted message, Jenna was starting to think she knew which Healer she spoke to. It would not be the Chitanook or the Bothan; the speech patterns were wrong. One of the famous Vastra twins, then.

[Even if we could talk Kenobi into agreeing to such a thing, it would not work. All sedatives have a limited affect. 50 c.c. of tarro. for full unconscious sedation as of now.]

Jenna smiled. The Sith toxin was turning out to function even better than she had hoped. [Fire showed no signs of being a reuptake inhibitor during my initial experiments. I imagine it has mutated to account for your meddling.]

There was a long pause, during which Jenna went back to her study of the profile. This was only one small portion of Fire, the one she had modified to change its onset trigger. It was always best to start at the end and work backwards, she had found.

[Were you, at any point, going to inform anyone that Fire could defend itself?]

The scathing tone was apparent without any emphasis needed. Jenna was delighted. [I was not asked questions about Fire. I was only ordered to cure it.]

[Can you actually do so?]

[If you leave me to work without interruption, my chance of success will be much higher.] Jenna frowned. She did want to cure Fire. Aside from the challenge of learning to deconstruct the powerful toxin, Jenna knew that her captors were serious about her time limit. She saw no reason yet to give up the laboratory she had been given, and she needed the time to work on the Shillanis puzzle…as well as her new Neti project.

[Stop trying to thwart Fire] Jenna sent. [If the toxin is not attempting to defend itself, it will not mutate further. All you have done with your neurochemistry experiment is teach Fire a new way to create suffering in its host.]

[I was given to believe we were dealing with a toxin, not nanogenetics.]

[Perhaps I am ascribing too much sentience to Fire.] Jenna paused. [Or not. It was very reticent with its secrets.]

[And you used it anyway.]

Jenna pressed her lips together, amused. Ah, a Healer’s sanctimony. How precious. [Of course I did. How else was I to learn the full extent of what it could do?]

 

*          *          *          *

 

“Nothing to be done, hmm?”

“You don’t sound surprised,” Ra’um-Ve replied.

“I’m not,” Venge said, and bent his head to massage his forehead. He’d awoken from that unannounced sedation to find that he was stiff and aching all over, a parting gift from the serotonin poisoning. “Zan Arbor lies when it suits her, but in this instance, she has nothing to gain by it. If anything, she is probably granting us our best option for my longevity.”

“You’re swinging wildly back and forth, by the way.” Venge glanced up to find a serious expression on her face. “Your speech patterns.”

Venge scowled. “Fucking hells.”

“Still swinging,” Ra’um-Ve said, smiling. “But, you have new rules. Since we’re stuck on the far end of the sedative spectrum, and I don’t actually want to kill you—”

“I can’t just sleep whenever I’m ordered to,” Venge growled.

Ra’um-Ve nodded. “I know. This is about your teaching. From now on, at least two Healers need to attend any lecture or lesson you hold, wherever it may be. Your temper was trying to best you before. If you slip, someone needs to be there to make sure that nobody dies.”

“That won’t happen.”

“I know that you don’t _want_ it to happen,” Ra’um-Ve said in a gentle voice. “We are being realistic, Obi-Wan. Also, I’d rather your students not have a first-hand education in Sith healing unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

She had a fair point. “All right. I have no real objections beyond the fact that any Healer in attendance may learn far more than they bargained for.”

Ra’um-Ve didn’t seem bothered. “That’s going to happen, regardless. Don’t worry; I’m sure we can all put on our adult pants and cope with the horror.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Ni-Dia whirled and caught the blast of lightning on her lightsaber. She grasped the hilt with both hands when the electricity intensified, strong enough to cause her to slide backwards on her boot heels.

The Force Lightning vanished as quickly as it had begun. Venge stepped out of the shadows that had collected three meters to her right. It shouldn’t have been so dark in the hall, but there had been another game of Stab-and-Tag. The Bo twins had a strange fascination with using credit chits to short out the facility’s glow panels.

“Kurri,” he said, studying her. The casual, deceptive elegance of the predator’s mask was firmly in place. His eyes were shining like the panthers of her homeworld.

“Kenobi,” she returned, allowing her senses to spread out and around her. Ni-Dia wouldn’t put it past the man to utilize other hiding Shadows to make the trial more deadly. None of them had figured out how to see those who were hidden, yet, but sometimes movement with intent caught Ni-Dia’s attention.

“You fear the lightning.”

It wasn’t what she had expected him to say. “I do, yes,” Ni-Dia admitted. “I have since I was a child.”

Venge seemed irritated. “I was hoping that your mastery of internal grounding would help with that.”

Well, that did explain why she seemed to have been the target of more Force Lightning than anyone else. “If anything, the fear increases.” Ni-Dia disengaged her lightsaber, sensing that the attack had ceased for the moment.

“Extreme measures, then,” Venge said, and turned to walk away. He looked back over his shoulder after three steps. “Well?”

 _Ah._   Ni-Dia clipped her lightsaber to her belt and followed him.

“The cathedral?” she asked, when they stepped out into the massive space. Skaalka and Fieff were sparring like their lives depended on it, though Skaalka swatted Fieff the moment she noticed their arrival.

“Plenty of room,” Venge replied in a curt voice. His eyes flickered over to Fieff, who was getting up off the floor with his hand clutched to his chest. “Skaalka, I realize that you play rough with your toys, but Fieff needs to breathe.”

Fieff wheezed out a laugh as Skaalka lifted him up from the floor by the backs of his tunics. “S’okay. Nothing broken.”

“See?” Skaalka looked pleased. “Not hit hard.”

“I’ll give you the same offer I made for Gyre. Get over here, or get the fuck out,” Venge said. Ni-Dia was not surprised when both of her fellow Shadows chose to join them in the center of the room.

“What do?” Skaalka asked.

“Property damage,” Fieff guessed. Ni-Dia thought he was most likely correct. Their instructor did not do things by halves.

“Immersion,” Venge said, and gestured.

Ni-Dia gasped, shamed when she could not counter the instinctive fear that forced her down to her knees. The air around them had filled with roiling violet smoke, and within that smoke was flash after flash of blue lightning.

“Great _fuck,_ I hate you!” she heard Vos screech, followed by vicious swearing.

Venge laughed, a sound that had never failed to set her lower brain into seeking out potential exits. “He grounded wrong.”

Fieff knelt down beside her. “You all right, Kurri?”

Ni-Dia took a careful breath. The air tasted of ozone. “Yes,” she said, though her heart raced. She felt light-headed from the surplus of blood, spiking oxygen to both her brains.

“Is dangerous?” Skaalka asked, reaching out with one claw-tipped finger to touch the nearest bit of whirling violet. She jerked her hand back when electricity jumped from the cloud to ground itself in her flesh.

“Painful, but not dangerous,” Venge explained. Ni-Dia looked up to find him standing with his left hand stretched out, palm up—a miniature version of one of the purple clouds was hovering above his hand, throwing sparks. “If it is contained in a very small space, a strike would be fatal, but I allowed the manifestation to fill the room. It will hurt, but it is survivable.”

Ni-Dia watched lightning jump, power couplings in raw, natural form. Her mouth was stone dry. It was beautiful, but her instincts were screaming in shrill warning. For a Cerean, surviving a natural lightning strike was one thing. Coming through with both minds intact was another difficulty entirely.

“What happened when you were a child?” Venge asked.

Ni-Dia felt intense relief when Fieff offered her his hand. He often played the fool, but he was one of the most sensible Jedi she had ever known. “I was struck. I was four summers old.” Her voice was a whisper that carried no further than their ears. “There were no clouds in the sky.”

“Clear-air lightning.” Venge nodded. “What happened?”

“Physically, I was fine, but for the electrical scarring down my back and legs. Mentally…if it were not for a visiting Jedi Master, I would not have survived.” Her rescuer had become her means to join the Jedi Order.

“Understand,” Skaalka nodded sagely. “But Kurri—is _pretty_ ,” she said.

“I can appreciate the aesthetics!” Ni-Dia snapped.

Venge knelt by her side, so that he and Fieff now bookended her. “Master Kurri,” he said in a soft voice. “You are a Jedi Master of superb ability, and you are grounded in the Force.” He tilted his head in the direction of the electrical clouds. “If you do not wish to be harmed, you will not be.”

“Easy enough to think.”

“Easy enough to _do_ ,” Venge countered. “Now get the fuck up off of this floor and walk out of this room.”

“And if I don’t?” Ni-Dia asked. She would, of course, but she was a Shadow. Spit and attitude were prerequisites.

“Well, if you do not start moving soon, I will be throwing lightning at you.” Venge smiled, his eyes gleaming with manic humor. “For encouragement, of course.”

Ni-Dia sighed. “You are beyond cruel,” she said, but there was no heat in her words.

“I’m not here to be kind. I am here to make certain that you all survive.” Venge waved his hands towards the turbulent cloud layer that began two meters away from their bodies.

Ni-Dia stood up, shaking out her tunics. She breathed out.

She was a Jedi Master. To have allowed this fear to fester for so long was utter foolishness.

 _Think on why you must do this,_ Ni-Dia thought. She recalled Thrai’s face on that very first day of Shadow-training. Her old Padawan had been full of joy when the Healers told her she had conceived.

_Think of all you wish to protect._

Ni-Dia tightened her shields, prepared her grounding pathways, and walked into the clouds.

It was not near as bad as she feared. The air felt thick and heavy, but was dry when she breathed it in. Sparks danced upon her tongue; blue lightning struck the fingers of her outstretched right hand. It stung, but she allowed the electricity to travel the paths _she_ constructed. The lightning discharged harmlessly into the floor with her next step.

Vos and Zarin Har met her at the corridor opening for the Left Strip. “We’ve got her!” Vos called.

“Excellent!” Fieff shouted, his voice muffled by the cloud. Skaalka congratulated her with a Trandoshan war cry.

“How was it?” Vos asked her.

Ni-Dia considered the question for a long moment. Then she turned around and went back into the electrical storm.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Venge lay atop the bed in his quarters, stripped to the waist. The sheet beneath his bare back felt too hot, and scratched at his skin. Going without was worse, as the plastine-wrapped mattress created pools of sweat.

He wanted to be comfortable, but that was no longer possible. Fully clothed was too warm; nudity caused him an intense chill. Even if he levitated himself into the air for sleep, there was no escape from his own body.

Water helped, but sleeping in the shower caused him to fucking panic.

He heard the intercom click on. “You know, you could just strip naked. None of us would be offended.”

Venge managed a faint smile. MonMassa’s senior Padawan, Xavery Tkee, had become one of the key observers for the Cathedral. She appeared dainty and demure, which was reason enough to never tell her a damned thing. Beings like her knew where the bodies were buried, and were perfectly willing to add to the pile if need be.

She also had no compunctions about sticking her nose where it wasn’t wanted. “Have you not tired of looking at my genitals after all these weeks, Xavery?” he asked.

“To be honest, it’s your ass that I prefer, sir,” she replied in a sweet voice.

“You are incorrigible. Is there a reason you’re interrupting my rest?”

“Because you’re not resting,” Xavery said. “Would you like me to raise the temperature in the room? Lower it? Turn on the sprinkler system? Release the knockout gas in the walls?”

Venge cracked his eyes open. “ _Is_ there knockout gas?”

Xavery giggled. “Well, you have to admit that it would be a good idea. Maybe it can be added after you guys are done with the Cathedral, and we’ve cleaned up your mess.”

He closed his eyes again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh huh. I’ll just ignore the wall, then. Going back to silent mode, sir. Please do consider sleeping.”

“Please do consider gender reassignment,” he shot back.

“Too late; that was last year,” Xavery chirped, and cut the comm.

Venge swallowed to wet his parched throat. He was not sweating to the point of dehydration, but he craved moisture all the time. Not even the desert had been this efficient at stripping water from his body.

He stretched out on the bunk, arms thrown out, legs spread apart. He had gone days without rest. If it weren’t for the dim, troubling nightmares he suffered from during immersion, he would have gone to the Healers for another bacta treatment three times over by now.

Venge stared up at the ceiling. _Please let me sleep._

At some unknown point, between one blink and the next, he finally slipped under. It did not bring relief.

Venge found himself standing in a field. The light from a bright sun was warm; the green and violet grass rippled in a cool breeze that tugged likewise on his clothes. He turned in a slow circle. There was nothing around for kilometers, not in any direction. Only in the east was the line of the horizon broken by the gradual rise of blue-tinged mountains.

It was peaceful. Serene. Venge swallowed hard and sat down on warm earth, pressing his face against his knees and wrapping his arms around his legs.

It was not long before a male voice asked, “What in the hell are you doing?”

Dreams that spoke to him first _never_ boded well. “Staying put,” he muttered. If he refrained from moving, he decreased the chances of this turning into a complete, literal nightmare.

There was a pause. “Yeah, I suppose I can’t blame you for that.”

Venge was not pleased when his companion sat down next to him. “Fuck off.”

“I’ll forgive your utter lack of manners,” the man said. “I’ve been where you are, after all.”

Venge lifted his head, looked to his left, and directed his most furious glare at Ulic Qel-Droma. “I know that. I want you to go away because I am not in the mood for stupid, useless platitudes.”

Ulic shrugged at him. He had the sleeves of his bright blue shirt pushed up past his elbows, and was sitting in a relaxed sprawl on the grass next to Venge. “Well, that’s good, because I was always pretty damn bad at those.”

Venge looked away. “Where are we?” he asked.

“Oh, that’s right. You wouldn’t know.” Venge heard shifting fabric as Ulic settled himself more comfortably. “This is Coruscant. Probably about…” he paused. “Fifty-five hundred years ago. Those are the Manarai Mountains.”

Venge squinted at the mountains in the distance. The shape did look somewhat familiar.

“If we went up in the air about fifty meters, we would be able to see the city spires near the closest mountain. They’re about two hundred kliks to the east.” Ulic crossed his legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his face on his hands. “This is Coruscant’s last nature preserve, before the buildings took over the whole of the planet’s surface. When I was a kid, there was only a small corner of this left. Bastards charged visitors a king’s ransom for a single hour’s visit.”

“You cling to the past,” Venge said.

Ulic snorted. “And you don’t?”

Venge was starting to wonder if it were possible to stab Qel-Droma . “What do you want?”

“You wound me,” Ulic said, a lopsided grin on his face. “What makes you think I want something?”

“The last time you showed up in a dream, you wanted me to find a Neti.” Venge scowled at the weaving grasses. “If you came looking to find out how that is going, then I will tell you that it is not. Despite research, and quizzing Odan-Urr’s reticent holocron, I have made no progress.”

Ulic gave a slow nod. “I didn’t think it would be easy. Odan-Urr could be tricky, too, from what I recall. I only met him a handful of times.”

Venge stared ahead, unblinking, before shouting, “Fucking damned benighted _fool!”_ and burying his face in his hands.

“Honestly, is that frustration or enlightenment? It’s often hard to tell with you,” Ulic said.

“I know where Ood Bnar is,” Venge spoke through his fingers. “Odan-Urr is a sly bastard.”

Ulic started laughing. “Aw, did Odan-Urr do one of those things where he told you exactly what you wanted to know, but phrased it so it seemed entirely fucked up?”

Venge sighed. “I thought the holocron’s matrix was deteriorating.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Venge rested his crossed arms on his knees. “If Ood Bnar is in the dire shape I believe he must be in, then nothing. Not yet. I don’t think a Neti that has been hibernating for four thousand years needs the sort of wake-up call that I would provide.”

“Good. You need to go to Mortis, first.”

Venge uttered a low growl. “No.”

Ulic gave him a sympathetic look. “This isn’t negotiable, Kid. If we don’t do something about the Fire in your system, it’s going to kill you.”

“I will survive,” Venge grated out, “without returning to that damned place.” Obi-Wan could not remember Mortis…but Venge did.

“Stubbornness often carries the day, but not this time.” Ulic smiled. “It won’t be like before. He will be there with you, Obi-Wan.”

Venge shrieked in rage and threw himself at Qel-Droma. He woke up on the floor, instead, with one arm bent awkwardly beneath his body and his right leg ensnared by twisted, sweat-soaked sheets.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Boda MonMassa toggled her terminal comm with the Force without reaching for it. “Yes?”

“Master Tholme and Knight Kenobi are waiting for you, Master,” her Padawan said.

She frowned. “Xavery, you were supposed to give me ten minutes’ notice.”

“I did, Master,” Xavery said in her bright, cheerful voice. “Ten minutes ago. Put down the report from Raffi before it sucks you in again.”

“Cheeky, insufferable brat,” Boda replied fondly. “I will be down in five.”

“Yes, Master. If you’re not, I warn you that I’ll be sending in someone to drag you out.”

Boda shook her head and stood, pulling on her robe before exiting her office. She would never admit it, but Xavery was the favorite of her three Padawans. Xavery Tkee was capable, efficient, keen at logistics and intergroup communication, and kept secrets like the worst sort of reticent monk. The only real bump in their time together had been Xavery’s realization at age fourteen that being male was for—well, other males. Boda had been prepared for many things as a teacher, but gender transition had caught her by surprise.

She rode the turbolift down to the small command center claimed by the Shadows. It was dim inside, to highlight the bank of vidscreens that dominated one wall. Boda looked down at the line of cables stretched across the floor.

“Were we not doing something about that?” she asked.

“That’s about the best we could do without tearing down the entire system and starting over again,” Hgu said. The technician was staring down at his datapad. “Don’t step on it, Master. It makes monitor five blink out.”

“Noted.” Boda walked across the room to join her Padawan, noting the content of each monitoring vid that she passed. Vos and Herssella were in the commissary. The gist of their interaction seemed to involve adjusting Herssella’s leather protective gear. Kurri was reading while sitting in the ungodly nursery, one of the few places in the Cathedral that most of the Shadows refused to enter. Grierseer was sitting in the lecture hall, conversing with—Fieff, not Dravaco, which was a surprise. Tachi and Skaalka were sparring in the cathedral, and looked to be having a grand time despite Skaalka’s heavy-handedness in all things combat-related. Many of the Shadows were watching, though the Bo twins had started throwing knives back and forth. She judged it about three minutes before someone drew blood.

One of the monitors was progressively tracking empty space. “That’s Dravaco,” the observing Knight on duty told her. “They can bend light and hide in the Force all they want, but it doesn’t block their bio-trackers.”

Xavery greeted her with a smile that looked demure, but was actually just shy of impish. “Nice of you to join us, Master.”

Boda turned her attention to the holographic projections of Tholme and Kenobi. It was not hard to fathom why they had called. “Yes, I still think that what you wish Knight Herssella to do is insane.”

Tholme grimaced. “No one is arguing that, MonMassa.”

“Padawan Tkee made a specific comment about knockout gas in the walls,” Kenobi said. Boda looked at him, and though he seemed physically fine, the Healers had already reported otherwise. “What contingency plans do you have in place, if something goes wrong within the Cathedral?”

Boda raised an eyebrow. “The obvious, of course. There are no vessels on site. All I have to do is cease your supply runs, and the whole of the Cathedral is effectively quarantined.”

“Ah.” Kenobi exchanged a look with Tholme, who nodded once. “I was thinking of something with a lot more insurance attached.”

“Go on,” Boda said.

“If something happens within this facility that we fail to contain, you need to destroy the entire area with extreme prejudice.” Kenobi crossed his arms. “Never rely on mere isolation when it comes to anything involving the Sith. Sidious would not be contained by quarantine.”

“You believe he would just create a wormhole and escape.” Boda was not convinced. “The one time Sidious exposed you to a Force Storm, it killed you.”

“That is because he wanted it to do so.” Kenobi’s smile was too grim to be considered humorous.

“By ‘extreme prejudice’ I suppose you mean uninhabitable by any living creature.” When Kenobi nodded, Boda sighed. “All right. Tell me why you believe Knight Herssella can do this without becoming a danger.”

“It’s never reassuring when mass murder is what it takes for you to change your mind,” Xavery muttered.

“She is a Rishii, a predator. It is part of her biology to hunt and kill. That is not Darkness; that is nature. I believe that Herssella’s use of this particular glyph set would be on the gray side of things, at the worst.”

“Out of all of them, Herssella is the one most qualified to make the attempt,” Tholme put in. “What convinces me that this is necessary is that damned spy. We need to find him. Here, he is a contained danger, but later? Who knows where the hell he might turn up next.”

“I imagine Sidious has plenty of spies,” Boda said in a dry voice.

“Yes, but if we can find this one, it will be one _less_ spy to deal with later,” Tholme argued. “I am always in favor of mathematics that gives us one less problem to deal with.”

“The further consideration…” Kenobi tilted his head. “I believe that Herssella is one of the few who could receive this glyph set and use it, and never be tempted to learn any of the others. I have no fears of Herssella Grinn turning, nor would she ever side with Sidious.”

Boda felt a flush of excitement and quelled it as inappropriate. It was the first time that Kenobi had made such a specific declaration. “Is there anyone else that you feel that way about?”

“Tachi,” he said, without hesitating. “She is built for the life of a Shadow, and always has been. Colm Fieff, also.”

Boda felt her eyes widen. That wasn’t a name she had expected to hear. “You’re certain about Fieff?”

“Absolutely,” Kenobi said.

Tholme nodded. “I wouldn’t have guessed, but the man’s been hiding a hell of a lot of tricks behind that glib mask of his. If we’d been paying better attention, we could have promoted him to Master five years ago.”

“Those three Shadows could walk into the Chamber of Trial here on Entrios, and I have no doubt that they would all succeed,” Kenobi said. “The other nine I am unsure about, but in some cases that is less about training and simply just a lack of long-term familiarity.”

“And what about Vos?” Boda asked.

“It is no secret that my former Padawan still has problems mastering his anger,” Tholme said bluntly. “However, he is doing well, far better than I had once dared to hope. Both Kenobi and myself are plotting ways to help Quinlan master his feelings.”

“Good.” Boda crossed her arms. “Have you given any thought about accepting our offer to become Fareesi’s replacement, Kenobi?”

Kenobi’s expression went flat. “Ask me again when Fire is done.”

Boda smiled. “Will you say yes?”

“That remains to be seen, considering I will be sane by then.”

Tholme chuckled. “Kenobi, I’ve read the Agnata report. You can make no such claim.”

One of Kenobi’s eyebrows lifted. “Those were extraordinary circumstances.”

“They always are,” Boda said. “You have official permission to let Knight Grinn make the attempt at using these glyphs. We will be monitoring the situation on our end, as always. Padawan Tkee will let me know when the experiment is set to begin, so that I will be down here to witness it.”

“Thank you, MonMassa,” Tholme said. Both men bowed to her before the hologram dispersed.

“What do you really think, Master?” Xavery asked her, after logging the conversation.

“I think that great things can come of taking risks,” Boda said, and then sighed. “Often, however, risks also create large explosions.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Days ago, Kenobi had knocked on the door to Herssella’s quarters. She had bid him enter, and he had gifted her with two things.

The first was a sheet of true paper, not ’plast. On it were written six glyphs that she had never seen before, arranged in a circle so wide that it almost did not fit properly on the sheet.

“Study this,” Venge told her, before Herssella could ask questions. His eyes had a hard, uncompromising sheen. “You must know how to create these exactly as they are, in this pattern, without flaw. They can be exactly to scale, or larger, but there must be no deviation.”

Herssella nodded. “That will require practice.”

He drew out her second gift from the folds of his brown cloak. It was a plastine bag filled with a dark, viscous fluid. “The Healers say this is a very close analog to cooling mammalian blood. Practice with it. Use the Force to arrange the glyphs on whatever surface you practice on.”

“Mammalian?” Herssella repeated.

“The only comparative prey species here are mammalian,” Venge said. “That, you will have to hunt on your own.”

Herssella placed the squishy bag aside, careful not to pierce it. There was a cap on the end that would allow her to squeeze out acceptable amounts. “I will not write them with my hands, or my claws?” The mention of hunting had stirred her heart. It had been too long since the wind had caressed all of her feathers, and not even the thought of hunting in Entrios’s frigid wastes would be enough to dull her enthusiasm.

“When performing any sort of Sith magic, it is wise not to get the components of your spell upon your person,” Venge replied. “The results can become vastly different than what you plan.”

He left her, and Herssella, without anything better to do at that moment, uncapped the blood analog. Then she held the plastine bag away from her face. “You did not mention that it stank,” she grumbled.

It was disconcerting to realize how _difficult_ it was to shape the glyphs with nothing more than the Force. Herssella had thought her manipulation skills to be above average, but this required a fine control that she had never bothered to master.

At last, she sighed, dipped the claw of her index finger into the thick purple liquid, and wrote the glyphs onto the floor of her room until she had memorized each one. After she cleaned the blood analog from her claw and finger, it became easier to use the Force to re-create the glyphs.

“What do they mean?” Herssella asked him the next day, taking the chair at his commissary table before anyone else could approach.

Venge looked at her. She had the strong impression that he was reading her intentions. “If I tell you what the individual glyphs mean, would you be tempted to rearrange them to attempt other blood magic?”

Herssella drew back. It had never even occurred to her that it was possible, which was a foolish assumption to make. “No.” She paused. It was an honest response, and yet, other scenarios were beginning to occur to her.

“Someone could take that information from my thoughts,” Herssella said. “Could they not?”

Venge nodded. “They could, if your shields failed.”

Herssella clacked her beak decisively. “Then I do not need to know,” she said, and returned to her room to practice glyph-drawing on the floor. The silver durasteel tiles were gaining a purple hue. By her third day of practice, the cleaning droids had nothing but foul binary beeping for her.

She saw the six glyphs every time she closed her eyes. She accidentally formed them with the drippings from lunch when she lost track of group conversation.

By the fourth day, she was ready.

“Here,” Healer Zar said, holding out a small cup of something that was warm and smelled terrible. “This will help keep your core temperature up during your flight. No sense letting your wings take frostbite when it is easily preventable.”

“Thank you,” Herssella said, voice grave, and accepted the cup. It tasted better than it smelled. Once it hit her stomach, a feeling of delicious warmth began to spread through her limbs.

The Shadows had all gathered, as had the Healers, Tholme, and Kenobi. The doors opened, and Herssella was the first to go outside. For once, the winds were quiet, and no snow fell.

Her companions were all dressed for icy weather. Grierseer and their Bothan Healer had both bundled up until only their eyes were showing. Her instructor was wearing one of the winter jackets meant for the environment, but had left it unzipped, hood back. The only other concession he had made for the cold were gloves upon his hands.

“There’s a herd gathered here, about two kliks to the east,” Tholme told her, showing Herssella an aerial map of the region. The Cathedral was easily recognizable, as were the warm heat spots of living creatures. “Come back here for the actual…blood-letting.”

Herssella could not resist the opportunity. “You are squeamish, Tholme?”

“Blood and needles are the big triggers,” Vos put in helpfully, a wide, merciless smile on his face.

“Shut up, Padawan,” Tholme said, but there was a telltale twitch to his lip that spoke of humor. “Good hunting, Herssella.”

Herssella nodded, taking a running start. She leapt into the air, letting her wings spread out. With one great stroke, she was in flight. The wind struck her full in the face and bit into the leading edge of her wings.

By the gods, it was _cold_ on this rock!

She found the herd easily enough. They were quadrupeds, about a meter in length and a quarter of a meter tall, with thick fur capable of repelling the worst of Entrios’s ice. She swept in low, setting the herd to snorting nervously. It was almost no hunt at all; the creatures had no natural predators on this world, and thus feared little.

Herssella chose the smallest adult for her prey, hooking her rear talons into the solid flesh of its backside. The animal shrieked in pain and struggled, which made Herssella grunt and then call out in her own language at the effort it took to get her catch airborne.

She lifted her legs to bring the animal close. She hooked her foreclaws into the neck and gave a quick twist. The protestations ceased, and warm blood slicking her downy fingers made her heart sing with delight. A visit home to participate in the clan hunt was in order, if such a pathetic victory gave her such pleasure.

The return trip to the Cathedral was short. Herssella dropped the dead animal into the snow, circled once out of long, instinctive habit, and then landed beside it. She snapped her wings closed, relieved at the return of her best insulating layer. Healer Zar’s concoction was helpful, but she was still too cold for her preferences.

“Try _not_ to run forward and trample Herssella’s work,” Venge said in a cutting voice, when too many Shadows tried to get a closer look at her kill. She appreciated his warning, since her own ridge feathers had begun to rise at the invasion. Her kill, her blood, _her_ feast.

Venge nodded at her. “Whenever you are ready, Knight.”

Herssella set to work. She rinsed her hands, claws—rear feet, and talons—thoroughly with a sanitizing solution the Healers had given her, taking care that no scent of blood, no hint of red, remained on her body.

She had not destroyed veins in the animal, and she did so now, while the blood was still hot enough to run freely. The snow turned red, and the resulting scent made her mouth water. She hoped the animal would not be damaged by the spell. It would make a fine dinner.

Herssella began telekinetically arranging the blood, letting the glyphs fall into perfect red patterns upon the hard-packed snow. The first did nothing. The second created a faint humming in her ears, one that increased as she placed the third and fourth glyph.

The glyphs began to emit smoke when she placed the fifth glyph. Herssella hurried to make the sixth, completing a perfect circle on the ground before her. She had been careful not to cast it around herself, as not even Kenobi knew what would happen.

The glyphs did not remain red. They turned a bright, eerie green, like swamp lights forming and burning in the night.

“Great Sith hells, Herssella,” Kurri said in a startled voice. “Your eyes burn the same color as your glyphs!”

Herssella blinked twice. Her eyes felt no different, but it was time to test them.

Fieff had cast an illusion over himself. It was a Bantha, perfect in every detail, including its stationary sway as it chewed its cud. Fieff was visible within it, as if the Force Illusion was transparent.

“It works,” Herssella said. She sounded amazed, even to herself. For a work that was considered Sithly and evil, she felt no different. If not for using the blood for glyphs, it would have been a normal hunt.

Then she turned to look at her instructor, and drew back with a gasp. “You are ill!”

Venge scowled. “I was poisoned nearly two months ago; of _course_ I am ill.”

Herssella shook her head. He was wearing an illusion upon his skin, one that hid signs of terrible illness. There were great purple crescents under his eyes that looked like the worst sort of impact bruising. She could tell by the thinning of his features that Fire was burning weight from his body.

Worse were the thread-thin, jagged green lines upon his neck and on his face, signs of an unknowable corruption. “You should not hide this from us,” Herssella whispered, appalled.

“I need you focused on your training, not my appearance,” Venge retorted.

Herssella whirled up on Fieff. “You! I know that you could see that! Why say nothing?”

Fieff just shook his head, regretful. “He’s got a point, Herssella. Us knowing won’t make a hell of a bit of difference, anyway.”

“Well, too late now,” Tachi said. Her voice was angrier than Herssella had ever heard it. “You fucking well are supposed to be honest with us, Kenobi!”

“Did you know, Master?” Vos asked Tholme. He did not sound angry, merely concerned.

“Of course I did,” Tholme said, and rubbed his forehead with his fingertips, as if fighting a headache. “The man’s getting poked and prodded by Healers three times a day at this point, and every scrap of data they collect goes to myself and MonMassa. I decided weeks ago that Kenobi had a right to what privacy he could get.”

Herssella paced in the snow, growling. She understood it, and yet she abhorred it. This failing health was caused by Fire, a tool of the Sith that they would need to know how to fight! She was about to open her beak to say exactly that, when a flash of movement near the doors caught her eye.

“There! I see him!”

Half of her brethren rushed forward, in hopes of cutting off their spy’s escape. “Where, Herssella?” Dravaco shouted.

“There—” Herssella let out an undignified squawk as the cloaked figure disappeared. “No!”

“The glyph circle’s gone,” Gyre said. “I guess that means it wore off.”

Venge was at her side without Herssella hearing movement. “Tell me what you saw,” he said. His voice was soft, but there was no mistaking the demand in it.

“Cloaked and hooded,” Herssella said, after a bit of mental concentration brought the memory to the front of her mind. “Bipedal. Tall, like Dravaco. Not as tall as your mate,” she said, after comparing the figure’s height to the markings on the cliff face. “Not wide or bulky, but not slight or too thin.” She narrowed her focus. There was a shine of color difference at the hood. “Black…hair, I believe. It does not look to be fur or feather.” She let the image go. “Nothing else. I did not see skin or pelt to help further the description.”

“That is more than we had before,” Venge said. “Well done.” He shivered. “Let’s go the fuck indoors. We can finish debriefing inside.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

“We got three minutes out of that, tops,” Fieff was saying. For once, he didn’t look boisterous at all—just grim.

Siri rested her chin on her hand. They had all gathered in the commissary, if only because it was the fastest way for mass dispersal of hot drinks. Even Venge had resorted to caff, wrapping his cold-reddened fingers around the mug.

“Three minutes is better than zero minutes,” Siri pointed out. “Or melted minutes, or catastrophic explosions. Or zombies,” she added.

Venge grimaced. “We’ve already been visited by one. Once was enough.”

Kurri made a _tsch_ ing noise of dismay, or maybe surprise. “An’ya came to the Cathedral?”

“Wait, An’ya _Kuro_?” Fa’an fumbled with her mug, almost dropping it. “The Dark Woman was here?”

Venge pretended to ignore Fa’an’s near accident. “She was here for several hours.”

“How is she?” Kurri asked, leaning forward. Her eye was filled with deep concern. “She is my friend, Master Kenobi. I would like to know.”

“Not…good,” Venge said, hesitant. “Not dire, but not good. She is still hunting for a cure for her condition.” He turned his attention to Herssella. “And you are fine, yes?”

Herssella fluffed her feathers again as she continued to warm herself. “Yes. It is easy to see how such magic could be terrible, but that particular spell…no. It was a normal hunt. I utilized the blood of that animal in a similar fashion to the way my people would harvest its skin or its meat. I did not feel Darkness at all.”

“Nor did we,” Tholme said. “There was no remaining residue on the snow, either. When the spell wore off, it left no trace.”

Herssella shifted back and forth in a display of irritation. “When do I get my dinner back?”

“When we’re certain it’s not contaminated,” Tholme replied. “That would be a foolish way to die, Herssella.”

“Why didn’t the spell last longer, then?” Gyre asked. “Did Herssella do something wrong?”

“By Sith terms, yes. She didn’t murder anyone.” Venge’s voice was dry. “Intent changes the nature of the magic.”

“Just as the work we do with the Force is of clean intent, while Sidious’s use would be dark,” Grierseer said. Tachi wanted to cheer; Grierseer was finally grasping the more esoteric complexities and looser morals of their training. “I’m guessing that not all Sith magics would work that way.”

“No,” Venge said. “The Eye-Mind was possibly the least harmful of anything I ever read about. I suspect the Sith stole it from other Force-users and warped it for their own ends. Herssella, if you are in a battle and use the blood of a fallen enemy, the spell will last longer. Try to avoid murdering anyone.”

Herssella laughed, a lyrical sound that always sounded at odds with the sober atmosphere in the Cathedral. “I am not inclined to murderous rages.”

“No, that’s just me,” Venge said, the corner of his mouth turning up.

The opening was too good to pass up. “All right, then.” Siri put down her mug. “You need to share with the rest of the class, Kenobi. What’s your Force Illusion hiding?”

For a minute, Siri didn’t think he was going to acknowledge her at all, unless it was to chuck a full mug of caff at her head. Finally, he set down his drink and leaned back in his chair. “Padawan Tkee.”

Siri heard the click of an intercom. “Yes, sir?” a young-sounding voice responded.

Venge sighed and held up his hand. His index and middle finger were upright and pressed together.

“No, sir. Jinn’s not here, and the Padawans haven’t actually dared to try and come spy. Honestly, it’s a bit disappointing,” Tkee said. “I can make sure he doesn’t see the footage, but the transcript will eventually make it into the Council reports.”

“Yes, but that’s several days’ delay,” Venge said. “Thank you, Tkee.”

“You’re welcome, sir,” Tkee replied, and the intercom clicked off.

Siri’s stomach felt like lead. If he didn’t want Master Qui-Gon to know, then it was bad.

Venge dropped the illusion without warning, and Siri sat back and bit off a curse. “No, okay, that’s worse than I thought it would be.” She could tell by his cheekbones and the sharper definition of his hands that he’d already lost weight, and he was too damn skinny to start with. His eyes were bruised and sunken, worse than any signs of exhaustion those dumb nightmare cycles had ever caused. It was the spider-webbing of green that chilled her: the vein-like lines were climbing up his neck, appearing around his eyes and at his hairline, and spreading out onto his hands.

“What the hell is that?” Dravaco asked. “That is not normal.”

Venge gave a short, humorless laugh. “None of it is normal, Dravaco.”

“We don’t know.” Abella had a sour look on her face. “Fire is causing it, but…”

“But if I didn’t know any better, I would call it a sign of decomposition,” Zarin Har said.

“That is the least reassuring thing you’ve said to me in three weeks,” Venge told the Bothan Healer. “I do not think it is that, regardless.”

“What is it, then?” Fa’an asked. Siri glanced at her and was surprised by the intense sorrow on the Falleen woman’s face.

Venge touched the jagged veining that was visible on his hands. Some of those green lines were much darker than others. “I believe it is Fire’s attempt at corruption.”

“Not lasting four months,” Skaalka grunted out, narrow-eyed. “You dying.”

Venge looked annoyed by the declaration. “I am not going to fucking die. We have a contingency in place.”

“Well, that’s just spiffy,” Vos muttered. “What’s the contingency plan? Freezing you in carbonite?”

“That would halt Fire’s progress, not dispatch the problem,” Abella retorted. “Honestly, I ought to make all of you study up on carbon-freeze procedure. Not even a stasis unit would work, because he’d come out of it in the same condition that he went in.”

“We’re all certain that I can make it to the third month,” Venge said. “After that? The Healers are going to deactivate part of my brain to induce a comatose state, and then dump me in a bacta tank for the remaining month.”

“That is seriously dangerous,” Siri bit out, angry about the tears burning at the corners of her eyes. Maybe it was naïve and foolish, but she’d honestly thought her friend was going to power through this like the stubborn badass he was.

Venge spread his arms with a derisive snort. “I do not have a lot of options at this point.” He dropped his arms and the illusion reappeared, masking the depth of what Fire was doing to him.

“What about Jinn?” Fa’an asked. “You can’t hide this from your Lifemate forever.”

“I do not intend to do so…but I am not telling him yet,” Venge said. Siri could see the sadness lurking in the amber depths of his eyes, and it just made things so much worse. “I may be breaking his heart soon enough. I see no need to rush the process.”

Siri and Vos exchanged glances. She could see the regret on Vos’s face, and wondered if he would be available later when she decided it was time to cry her fucking eyes out. This wasn’t something she could grieve over with Su’um-Va, who was going to be stressed as hell already because of the status of his patient. She couldn’t add to that burden.

Kurri managed to shock everyone when she said, “We all need to experience Fire.”

“Uh—fuck, and also no,” Grierseer said. “Also: _no._ ”

Siri eyed the Cerean woman. “Congratulations, you have just stolen the top spot for craziest person in the room.”

“You have just borne witness to the fact that Fire is killing me, and now you wish to try it,” Venge said in an angry, disbelieving voice.

“Of course we do. Fire is one of the many traps we could encounter in the battle against Sidious. If we are caught unawares…” Kurri placed her hands upon the tabletop. “That is a moment that none of us would be prepared for.”

“We don’t need to have a full dose. No offense, but I wouldn’t want to deal with Fire for six days, let alone the shit sandwich that you’re dealing with,” Vos said.

 _Oh, good,_ Siri thought. Vos was on the crazy train, too.

“What if we could get the concentration down to the smallest possible partial dose?” Vos continued. “A few hours’ experience with Fire would teach us how to recognize the toxin, and we’d learn how to deal with it.”

“Padawan, if I did not already know that you were crazy, that would prove it beyond all doubt,” Tholme said in a weary voice. “You’re also correct. Do you think it can be done?”

“Maybe,” Venge said, after a considerable pause. “But this is the one aspect of your training that I will not make mandatory. If we can create a partial dose…no, you will only take it if you volunteer.” He shook his head. “This is dangerous, and fucking _foolish._ If you panic and fight Fire instead of co-existing with it, we’ll have yet another Fareesi on our hands.”

“Damn,” Greegor whispered.

“That’s what got Master Fareesi?” Breegin asked.

Tholme nodded, his weathered face etched with regret. “He was already almost lost by the time he returned to the Temple. He couldn’t tell us details of how the toxin had affected him, else we would have known of Fire’s recreation before the Zan Arbor confrontation. Fareesi continued to fight it, something the Healers actively encouraged…” Tholme shook his head.

“Fighting A Drop of Fire is disastrous.” Venge’s voice was quiet but fierce. “I cannot stress that enough. You can resist it by engaging it, balancing it. That is all. To do otherwise is to push your mind to its limits. I may be a harsh teacher, but I do not want you _broken._ ”

An atmosphere of tension settled over the table. The weight of it felt suffocating and crushing, until Fieff said, “Man, you don’t fucking spar like it.”

Siri sputtered out a nervous, relieved laugh. “You just hate to lose, Fieff.”

“Got it in one, Tachi,” Fieff said, miming firing a blaster in her direction. “I don’t like to lose.”

“Neither do I,” Venge said. His voice held amusement, but his eyes were alight with bitter, stubborn defiance.


End file.
